Friday, June 19, 2009

The Lessons Of A Birdbath

This summer my husband and I decided that our yard needed a little sprucing up. We didn’t want to spend too much money because, like everyone, we are pinching our pennies a little bit. But our yard was quite drab and just needed a little face lift. In addition to planting some flowers we decided to get a birdbath. Wow, was this a hit with our 2 year old! We never knew we could be given so many lessons simply by having a birdbath. Here are just a few of the joys the birdbath has brought to our lives so far:

Our toddler is learning her colors at a rapid pace:

We have been working on colors for quite some time with our toddler and she has the basics down: red, green, yellow, etc. However, now that we have gotten the birdbath we have discovered just how much she loves to point out the colors of the birds that visit. Due to this, we have found ourselves becoming much more specific with our color descriptions. Instead of using the basic red, yellow, and green descriptive colors we are using more descriptive colors such as maroon, golden, and emerald. It is adorable to hear my daughter yell “The gold and maroon bird is back!”

Our toddler is learning about categories:

We have many different types of birds that are visiting our birdbath and have purchased a small bird book to help us identify all of the different types that we are seeing. In order to purchase your own bird book you can visit Amazon.com or you can check one out of the library.

By using the bird book and identifying different types of birds we are able to teach my daughter about the concept of “categories”. This was a concept that was foreign to her up until now. For example, we will say “that is an Oriole - it is a Midwestern summer bird”. It is amazing how interested she is in these categories. She will even repeat the categories to us at a later time!

Our toddler is developing an appreciation for nature:

Before we got the birdbath we would point out birds and animals to my daughter and she enjoyed looking at them. However, now that we have a birdbath we really feel that she has developed an appreciation for these creatures and is conscious of the fact that they need to take care of themselves by staying clean. I don’t think she really appreciated the birds before we got the birdbath and now she looks forward to “catching them in the act” and will stay still for several minutes just waiting for them to come. When she does see one she runs throughout the house and shrieks “There is a bird! There is a bird!”

Our toddler is learning about Responsibility and a Weekly Routine:

There is not much maintenance to having a birdbath but it does need to be washed out and refilled a couple of times a week. We make sure to include my daughter in this process to teach her the importance of responsibility and caring for other things in the world. She looks forward to doing this with her parents and loves to help..

A fun thing to do together:

I would have never imagined how fun it would be to have a birdbath. We are even starting to recognize the different “calls” of the birds that visit and are matching them up with the colors of the birds. It has been so fun to learn these things with my daughter and I cherish all of the fun times like these that we have together.

I highly encourage children of all ages to get a birdbath if you don’t already have one!

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Welcome to my Blog! I use this blog to discuss my successes, mistakes, and areas of growth in the “Family and Consumer Sciences” of Life. My hope is to share my knowledge and experiences with you so that you can also grow in this area. I have my Masters Degree in Family Education and my teaching license in Family and Consumer Sciences. I also have been married for 10 years and have 2 young daughters. I use my knowledge of Family and Consumer Sciences on a daily basis in my home life. It is important to recognize that we are all doing our best in our family life and in order to continue doing our best we need to come together to share our experiences and knowledge. Celebrating our success, learning from our mistakes, and sharing ideas in the area of Family and Consumer Sciences is what this blog is all about. We are not here to judge each other but instead to come together and support each other in this journey through the FACS of Our Lives. I hope you enjoy reading through the posts and continue to come back for future topics.

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